‘Fake’ narratives spread to sway elections’: CEC dares Oppn to give proof to back claims

NEW DELHI: Slamming the Opposition parties for levelling allegations that returning officers and district magistrates were influenced to vitiate the poll process, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Monday said the Opposition should come out with evidence before the Commission before the counting of votes takes place.

Addressing a press conference on the eve of the counting of votes in the Lok Sabha polls, the CEC said: “You cannot spread a rumour and bring everyone under a cloud of suspicion.’’ He was flanked by Election Commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and S S Sandhu.

Taking exception to allegations that district magistrates were being influenced, the CEC said: “Those levelling allegations should say which DM was influenced and we will punish them. They should tell us before the counting process begins.”

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh had claimed that Union Home Minister Amit Shah had been calling district magistrates and collectors and indulging in “blatant and brazen” intimidation.

District magistrates and collectors are the returning officers of their respective districts during the election. The Election Commission had accepted all the demands made by the multi-party delegation that met the panel on Sunday, saying the issues raised by them were part of the election process going on for seven decades.

“Some demands were made by a multi-party delegation. We have agreed to all the demands,” the CEC said, indicating that most of the issues raised by the multi-party delegation were part of election manuals.

Kumar admitted that the Election Commission had failed to counter the mischievous narratives spread during the poll process.

The CEC referred to various memes doing rounds on social media, describing the Election Commission as ‘laapata gentlemen’, asserting that he and fellow commissioners were “never out” and were “always here”.

Social media users had targeted the Commission for allegedly being absent amid the model code violations by top leaders during campaign for the Lok Sabha elections. In a lighter vein, Kumar said that now people will see memes on social media with a tagline that ‘laapata gentlemen’ are back. “We were never out, we were always here. We chose to interact with you through our press notes. This was the first time we issued close to a 100 press notes and advisories all put together,” he said.

He said that questions were raised on flaws in the electoral rolls, the efficacy of the EVMs and the alleged fudging of voter turnout figures.

He said that there was no complaint whatsoever from the candidates and those receiving Form 17 C which records votes polled in a booth. Referring to the over one crore polling personnel, he said they have remained the unsung heroes of the elections. He also said while “haar-jeet” (victory or defeat) is part of a democracy, no one talks of you (the polling and security personnel) who ensured flawless polls in the summer heat.

The CEC said India created a world record with 64.2 crore voters, including 31.2 crore women, participating in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections this year. He said over 68,000 monitoring teams and 1.5 crore polling and security personnel were involved in the world’s largest electoral exercise.

Kumar said that nearly four lakh vehicles, 135 special trains and 1,692 air sorties were used for conducting the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. “Only 39 repolls took place in the 2024 general elections as against 540 repolls in 2019,” he said.

The CEC further said that Jammu and Kashmir recorded its highest turnout in four decades at 58.58 per cent overall and 51.05 per cent in the Valley.

“Seizures of Rs 10,000 crore, including cash, freebies, drugs and liquor, were made during the 2024 polls as compared to Rs 3,500 crore in 2019,” he said.

Citing the Conduct of Election Rules, Kumar said the count of postal ballots will start first across all counting centres and asserted that there was “no doubt about it”.

Responding to questions, he said after half-an-hour of the start of the postal ballot count, the counting of votes recorded in the electronic voting machines will commence.

A delegation of the Opposition parties had on Sunday met the Commission to demand that postal ballot count should start first and the results of postal ballots should be announced first.

“Rules clearly state (Rule 54A) that postal ballot count will start first. In all centres in the country it will start first, no doubt about it. After half-an-hour we start the EVM count. So, there are three counts which are happening simultaneously — it happened in the 2019 elections, it happened in all the assembly polls held thereafter. It happened yesterday also in case of Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim assembly (vote count). We can’t change anything mid-course,” he said.

He said the postal ballot count and then the EVM count and finally the marching of VVPT slips with EVM results will continue.

Since 2019, VVPAT (paper-trail machine) slips from five randomly selected polling stations per assembly constituency (or segment in cases of Lok Sabha seats) are matched with the EVM count for greater transparency.

In a bid to prevent post-poll violence, the Election Commission (EC) has for the first time decided to continue with the deployment of central forces in some states even after the expiry of the Model Code of Conduct period, the CEC said.

He said while the EC believes that there would be no post-poll violence, to prevent any flare-up, the poll panel has, for the first time, decided to deploy central forces even after the provisions of the model code are lifted following Tuesday’s counting of the votes cast in the Lok Sabha polls.

The states where the central forces would continue to be deployed include Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Manipur, Kumar said. Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal have been provided with security forces for 15 days after the counting day.

Along with the Lok Sabha election, Assembly polls were also held in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. The counting of the votes polled in the Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh Assembly elections took place on June 2.